


A happy ending

by Hypatia_66



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Comfort Reading, Gen, Literature, Partnership
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 19:37:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18394997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hypatia_66/pseuds/Hypatia_66
Summary: Divided even by their preferred reading material, the partnership of an optimist and a pessimist shouldn't work.





	A happy ending

While Illya was checking the contents of his travel bag, Napoleon looked along his bookshelves. Their contents ranged among novels, poetry, books on logic and mathematics, biology and chemistry, and an array of dictionaries. “No physics books, Illya?”

“Physics books are always out of date by the time they’re published. I read journals.”

“Have you read all these books?”

“You have asked me that before, so you know that some of them are purely for reference. One uses them at need.”

“What need?”

Illya sighed; this too was a regular provocation on Napoleon’s part. “To prop doors open,” he said. “That extremely ancient edition of Webster’s is very useful in that respect.”

“I imagine it is. Where did you find it? – it must be nearly six inches thick,” Napoleon commented.

“In a second-hand bookstore. Very cheap.”

“I’ll bet. Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

“Taking any of these to read?”

“Of course,” Illya replied. “Dare I ask what you are taking?”

“I thought I’d take this month’s Playboy. There are some great…”

“Articles?” said Illya drily.

“Yes…”

“That confirm your masculine style in relation to the opposite sex?”

Napoleon sniffed. “So, you won’t want to read it when the time comes to swap?”

“No, and anyway this is going to be a short trip, isn’t it?”

“So, what _are_ you taking to read?”

“This, if you must know.” Illya handed him a small volume bound in cheap cloth.

“’Duineser Elegien’,” he read, and, opening it at random, looked at Illya and said, “It’s in German.”

Illya rolled his eyes. “Poetry should not be read in translation,” he said.

“I’m sure you’re right,” Napoleon lied. “I don’t know this. What’s it about?”

“About? Among other things, love and death, the spiritual and the earthly: the perfection of angels, the limitations of humans and how we are alone in the universe, unaware, and incapable of mortality.”

This time Napoleon rolled his eyes. “I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I feel extremely capable of mortality. And what’s this about angels? You don’t believe in them.”

“These are secular angels, not Christian. Perfect, beautiful spirits, separate from mortals, and terrifying if we meet them.” He opened the book at the first elegy, “‘ _Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich den aus der Engel Ordnungen?’_ That’s the most famous line.”

“Translate.”

“’Who among the angelic orders would hear me, if I cried?’”

Napoleon raised his eyebrows. “Wow. I know you enjoy being a pessimist, but it’s not going to raise your spirits – or anything else – is it? You’d be better off with Playboy.”

“I think I’ll stick with Rilke, thanks.”

<><> 

Of course – as Napoleon should have expected – his copy of Playboy was confiscated by customs officers on their arrival.

“It’s not pornographic,” he grumbled as he walked away.

“Depends what you’re used to,” said his unsympathetic partner.

“Well, those customs officers are going to have a fun night, I can see.”

“Naturally; what did you expect? And if you brought nothing else to read, I’ll read Rilke to you, if you like. It has its sensuous moments.”

“Really? … But my German isn’t that good.”

“I’ll translate.”

“Thanks, but for preference I think I’ll check the bookstall and then investigate the local bars. Don’t wait up.”

“Bear in mind we have an early start, Napoleon.”

<><> 

It was unfortunate that not only was Illya knocked silly but that, as well as mild concussion and needing some stitches in his scalp, he had to be hospitalised for monitoring. Napoleon left him sleeping and returned to their hotel. Illya’s book lay where he had left it the night before.

It was open at the ninth elegy. He bent over it… ‘laurel… darker than the surrounding green’… something life?… ‘fleeting life’, that was it…‘Us … the most fleeting’. Tsk. There was more about the sadness of human destiny and – he flicked to the end – something about ‘friendly death’. Gloomy stuff, poetry; not a healthy sort of reading material for their profession, he’d have thought, but he put it in his pocket in case Illya asked for it.

He was reading the book he’d picked up at the airport when Illya opened his eyes.

“Hi, partner, how you doing?”

Illya heaved himself into a sitting position. “I’m fine, now. I think I’ll get up.”

“Wait for the doctors to say you can. I brought your morbid poems but I think you ought to read something more cheerful.”

Illya held out his hand for it. “The sequence ends happily,” he said.

“It does?”

“You’ll just have to take my word for it; I know you aren’t going to read it. What _are_ you reading, anyway?”

Napoleon showed him the cover.

“’The spy who came in from the cold’ What’s it about?”

“You might like it – it’s about British secret service activities in Berlin.”

“Ah yes, of course – I’ve heard of it. It doesn’t end happily – I think you should know that.”

“I can rise above it, I’m an optimist,” Napoleon said loftily. “Unlike you,” he added.

Illya, apparently tame, nodded. “It's extraordinary that we work so well together, isn't it?” he said, his guileless smile masking satire.

<><><><> 

**Author's Note:**

> LJ Short Affair challenge. Prompts: trip, green
> 
> My 1924 edition of Webster's International Dictionary is indeed 6 inches thick.
> 
> Rainer Maria Rilke wrote the Duino Elegies in the intense period between 1912 and 1922.  
> ‘The spy who came in from the cold’ by John Le Carré was published in 1963.


End file.
